like throwing a brick into a bubble-bath. I confess!
I yelled, and bade my words make wine-dark angels
on the snowy carpet of discourse. The undertaking
smelled like middleclass brimstone, but I could not
determine the source of the smell. There was no
country song at the heart of my tiny mansion,
just a scribbling sound from the basement, like
the sound of a child punishing himself for a crime
he knows he didn't really commit. I tried to find
the source of the smell, the scribbling, but
wherever I went someone was there to switch
on the floodlights or flip up the floorboards.
It was a ruinous sort of hide and seek in which
the hider catches wind, goes to live in another house,
or disappears altogether. I tried tracking the wine-dark
footprints, but they made circles and came to
baffling in-conclusions: the landing of the stairs,
the side of the davenport, a claw-foot tub full
of lukewarm lavender water and bits of mortar.